


if it feels good

by booooin



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Headcanon, Illegal Activities, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, New York City, Orphanage, Truth or Dare, matt is way smarter than he lets on and mello knows it, mean kids, mello and matt driving across country, mello is deeply traumatized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:40:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11157300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booooin/pseuds/booooin
Summary: matt is a really good observer and all he wants is for mello to use him right. all mello wants are typical mello things and he's really not in the right mind. my headcanon/character analysis thing before i try to write my longer au where matt is really, really charming and mello is the walking definition of ptsd.





	1. matt's pov

There was very little that could make Matt mad, save for Mello. Mello infuriated Matt but Mello had also been gone for a year. Matt headed straight for the only other person that could have been behind this.

Near was in his usual corner with the usual toys.

“Hey man, I lost my Psychology book,” Matt said while standing too close. “Can I borrow yours?” 

“Yes.” Near didn’t move.

Matt waited. He had to. The picture could be hidden somewhere on Near’s body. 

He kicked Near just a little. “Show it to me.”

Matt hated Near because Near was a fucking phony. It wasn’t because he was jealous of him and always had been because Matt didn’t care about things like grades.

As soon as they got inside the room, Matt locked the door, dragged Near to the foot of his bed by the arms, and tied him to the metal frame with a belt. Then he trashed his room, knowing that he’d never find the photograph because it was fucking Near.

“You didn’t tie me up very well,” Near said. “I can easily escape if I really need to in a few hours.”

By then Matt was ripping pillows open and biting back tears so he stomped down on Near’s stomach, hard.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ever since Kira happened no one at Wammy’s House was allowed to have any pictures of themselves so when Mello pressed the photograph into Matt’s hand, a shiver went down his back. It was as if Mello was giving him a loaded gun that could be shot from anywhere at any time and only kill him.

All the staff had rushed out the door by then because Mello had obviously already left without saying goodbye so Matt was in a fragile state when he found a Mello in loose, black cotton in his bed.

“Shut up,” Mello said. “Can I have your jacket? The tan one? And your boots.”

“Those are my favorite shoes!”

“You stole them, right? From Shona?” Mello was unraveling laces stuck with mud.

“Fine. They're girls’s shoes anyway.”

Mello took his time with the shoes, making mistakes with the laces like he was afraid of getting out of there too fast. After his big announcement all the staff had come running so there was no way he had time to go to his room.

The thing was, Matt was always calm. And bored. That just was his thing and Mello’s favorite thing about him. No matter what Mello did, Matt would just never get riled up.

“Listen, Mello.” Matt cut his mattress open with the scissors on his desk. Inside was an envelope. “I’ve been stealing from Roger for years and I’m scared he's gonna find out and throw me out so…” He put the money and watch on the floor and stood with his back on the door in case anyone came knocking.

He figured that they weren’t going to talk about the photograph. He was afraid to look at it and wonder whether if that would be the image he would see every time he missed Mello from that moment on.

Mello was dressed and sizing up the window. He always did look cute in that jacket. 

“Are you mad at me?” 

It was when Mello got like this, so direct and forward, that he was truly vulnerable.

Matt scrunched up his entire face to smile and waved the photograph as evidence. “I guess we’ll find out.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Matt gave him a week’s head start and then his life was about looking for Mello for a while - four years give or take. Of course, Mello had always been better than him so it wasn’t really a task but some kind of masochistic self punishment that Matt really had better work out in therapy.

Right after Near steals Mello’s picture he gets sent out to America, of course. Matt follows right behind because, if he’s learned anything in life, it’s that to find Mello, just follow Near.

It’s four years of hacking for pay and then he catches a glimpse on stolen security footage from Staten Island mall of a blonde in leather shoplifting from Claire’s. On camera, Mello gives him a wink and Matt curses his own predictability.

After that, Matt never lets Mello out of his sight. There’s nothing to do but wait. Mello knows where he is and doesn’t think he needs him yet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nobody knew anything about each other at Wammy’s House, including Roger, so there was less sympathy than you’d expect from an orphanage. Even truth or dare was a battle of wits when having a backstory got you kicked out.

Surprisingly, Matt was the best at this game. For all the ambition he lacked, he loved knowing just enough about someone to blackmail them.

“Truth,” Near said, the one time he played. Linda’s eyes sparkled.

“How many times a week did you wash your hair before you came to Wammy’s House?”

“Every other day,” Near said without looking up from his puzzle. “So I supposed I washed it 3.5 times a week.”

“Anyone can tell that,” Mello had scowled when Matt told him that Near was mostly likely American or British. Those days, Matt fed Mello’s obsession because it made Mello sneak off with him and play hooky to talk. “He’s from a place where water is cheap and easy to use but didn’t go outside very much so didn’t need to bathe everyday.”

“He’s not changing the number of times from winter to summer either,” Matt added, stabbing a branch to the ground. They’d snuck out behind the garden shed. “So his family was able to afford air conditioning every day.”

Mello was livid and kicked grass. “That rich, little fucker.”

“Middle class, at least,” Matt agreed.

“Hey, Mello.” Matt planted the stick. “Truth or dare?” Mello always said dare.

“Truth.”

It took a full three minutes for Matt to come up with a question.

“What was your favorite book from before you came here?”

“I couldn’t read before I came here. Truth or dare. Dare. Run around that tree and come back,” Mello said in one breath.

When Matt came back, Mello glared at him expectantly.

“Truth or dare?” Matt asked, feeling more like they were doing something bad than he would if they had been back here snogging.

“Truth.”

Matt swallowed hard. There was remarkably little he knew about Mello because he got to Wammy’s House after Mello and the rule about not talking about your past was the only Mello followed.

“Did you live with a man or woman? Both?”

“Five women and sometimes different men. Do a cartwheel.”

When he was done, Matt hesitated once.

Mello looked okay, not mad or upset.

“How did your parents die?”

“They didn’t. They sold me.”

Mello didn’t give him any more tasks so Matt cut it out and pulled grass instead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Matt’s parents had gotten run over by a car so now he steals them for kicks. All the orphanages were filled up and he didn’t even realize he was starving until Watari picked him up. It was a such an average story and Matt was just a normal child genius slacking his way through his late teens. He’s in one when he gets the signal from Mello.

Okay, so it wasn’t a signal as much as a worldwide broadcast that anyone could see.

The missile in the Hudson was called an accidental military procedure and it was all good and well because no one got hurt.

Matt gets on the freeway to Los Angeles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were learning about countries when Matt wonders out loud where he’s from.

Mello looked at him like he was stupid. “You’re from Serbia. Idiot.”

Matt was shocked. “How the hell do you know?”

“You used to _curse_ in Serbian.”

“How do you know? Do you know Serbian?”

“I know six languages,” said Mello without answering the question.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The phone rings around 6 AM and Matt still hasn’t slept yet. There’s only one person it can be.

“Where are you?” snaps Mello four years after a lousy goodbye.

“I-80. Almost out of Kansas.”

“Drive faster.”

Matt blasts EDM and pushes 90 miles per hour.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When they were twelve and Near was eleven they’re been paired off for a project and this had created a catastrophe. Every day class as usual became Mello yelling at the top of his lungs and kicking something over. Matt loved all of it.

At the end of the day, the drug cartel problem Near and Mello were supposed to solve together had two wildly different solutions and they were both used as examples of what not to do.

“Near’s solution is simple and elegant but, without telling you if he is right or wrong, he offers zero proof of the suspect caught being the right one. Near, your deduction skills are obviously top grade. However, without getting involved in the actual situation, you’ll never be able to stand behind your theories and offer any evidence. You assume too much trust and cannot expect the world’s police to just believe anything you say because you are a world class detective.

Mello, you get to the heart of the problem quickly. You take only two days to solve the case but involve yourself in unnecessary danger by putting yourself right in the hands of the syndicate and using yourself as bait. While this method of solving the crime is very effective, I calculate that there is a 65% chance of you dying during the mission. Please rethink your strategy,” the teacher lectured.

“It’s by observing Mello,” Near said, “that I was able to find proof.”

A chair came crashing down.

“Fuck you, you fucking fuck!” Mello screamed until the teacher kicked him out the room.

When Matt finds Mello all bloody and burned up, he thinks of that moment in class and wonders why he was laughing so hard and then whether he’s finally lost his fantastic sense of humor over the years. There’s nothing but vodka to pour on the wound and Mello is unconscious so Matt figures it can’t hurt.

He clears all the extra clothes off the backseat and manages to get Mello spread out and buckled in and they’re passing through Death Valley when Mello tries to get both of them killed by jamming his fingers into Matt’s mouth from behind.

“God! Mello, it’s me!”

When their eyes meet in the rearview mirror, Matt sees terror dissolve into recognition and, for the first time in his life, felt like he was coming home.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Matt first got to Wammy’s House, he was an arrogant little shit head who was used to getting his way. He tried to steal one of Near’s action figures and woke up with his goggles gone.

Mello had doubled over laughing when Matt came to class and gave a good fight when Matt tried to knock some sense into him.

“I wanted to see if you would fight Near,” Mello said in bad explanation and handed them over. Matt was impressed. After that, Mello stuck to Matt.

What the hell, Matt had wanted to say when Mello snuck into his room his first night there, got into bed with him, pushed his face into his chest, and pulled Matt’s arms around him. All Matt could think about after that was how small Mello felt and wonder whether or not he was crying.

 


	2. mello's pov

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mello's pov of this canon character analysis series. I'm going to try to write a longer au after this!

When the school psychoanalyst told Mello he was bipolar with symptoms of PTSD he took it to mean that he would always be second best to Near.

“It’s up to you,” Roger had said, “If you want to take the medication or not.” The fucker didn’t even pretend to care.

Back then, Matt was selling his ADHD medication to all the kids so he could hitchhike to the next town over and buy weed from some McDonald’s employee he called Joey. Mello figured the market was cornered so the pills were worthless.

Matt’s Dexedrine made Mello perfect until he crashed and burned and smoking the weed at night kept all his emotions stored away so he didn’t realize he had any until he was almost comatose. Mello thrived on this diet. All night he thought of Near and all day he thought of nothing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Trees look like negatives of themselves at night and Mello barely knows why he’s awake or where he is for the first time in years.

“C’mon,” Matt says. “The vehicle’s good to go. I set it up on my way over.”

They’re leaving the Prius for a RV that looks like it used to be a meth lab, apparently.

Matt keeps talking. “Yeah, we have to ditch the car before New York anyway. They usually keep the alert out on the surrounding states.”

There’s no time to register the barely familiar scent behind Matt’s shampoo as Mello is barely hoisted into a dark, little space that smelled like trash.

“Jesus,” says Matt who still won’t stop talking. “What are you on?”

Mello thinks that it’s the Percocet and vodka tonics he’d been downing waiting for Matt to just get there already.

“It’s good,” Matt says for no good reason once he gets Mello on the cot. “Hey, you want your clothes on or off? I have, like, a shirt you can wear.”

The leather’s a gruesome story so Mello grabs a zipper that doesn’t go anywhere when he pulls.

‘I got it,” and Matt’s there.

Mello watches his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For his fifteenth birthday, Mello got himself his first birthday cake ever (chocolate) all to himself and it made him sick enough to vomit.

“Hey, are you okay in there?” 

Mr. Solomon was a creepy guy who didn’t look like anyone in particular and had the softest voice. Mello had picked him up because the fastest way he knew how to survive was picking out closeted pedophiles. In exchange for letting Mr. Solomon watch him pee, Mello got to crash on his pullout couch.

Eventually, Mello had to terminate that relationship not because Mr. Solomon had begun trying to get Mello in his room where, because of the TV (according to Mr. Solomon), every wall was sound proofed but because he had started hanging out with some real heavy hitters who had cash flow from every strip joint and heroin den in the tristate area now that Kira had taken care of most of the regulars.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Mello jerks away it’s to the rhythm of the RV going way too fast on a side road unprepared for long trips and the sun hot on his face.

“Fuck!’

“Oh.” They pull over and Matt pokes his head out. Mello realizes that they are on a mountain for god’s sake.

Matt looks way too happy.

“You’re awake.”

“-the fuck are we?”

“Colorado.”

Mello is speechless so Matt continues.

“I figured that you would want to get your photo back from Near in person.”

Matt’s quick so when Mello lunges his fingers just get hooked onto belt loops.

“Whoa, whoa… You’re still bleeding, man. Take it easy.”

Mello yanks Matt forward by the hips until he stumbles. “I know you’re not stupid unless all the NyQuil and weed and huffing finally did their magic so I can only assume you did this maliciously.”

“Hey, it’s not like that.” Matt still manages nonchalance. “Near stole it the day before he left.”

Matt is puppyish when he thinks he’s innocent.

“And I knew you would want to get it back, right? So I set it all up. We’ll go back to New York and you can see Near again.”

Now Mello could see that the puppy was looking for a pat for soiling the rug.

“Just get us off this goddamned mountain,” says Mello. “I want a shower and motel and we’re far enough from LA that Kira won’t find us here.”

At least Matt stays obedient when Mello needs him to be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Roger hated all the children but Mello was the one he loved to _despise_. Mello could tell by how nice Roger was to him.

“Everyone has a sob story,” he told Mello when he got in trouble for some useless reason. “But the successful ones are those who put the past behind them.”

Mello kicked and screamed because he didn’t care who he was and what he’s done and he sure as hell wasn’t the one who brought the subject of him having a past up in the first place but whatever names Roger liked to call him (“unstable”, “manic”, “temperamental”) was all really just a ploy to get under his skin and make him confess to some unholy deed.

“I don’t care what you were allowed or not allowed to do before you came here,” was another favorite. “But here at Wammy’s House, we have our own expectations.”

And “you may not be well suited to live a normal life because of your upbringing but, here, we only care about one thing. And that is finding L’s successor.’

Life sucked because Near was a model citizen in perfect working order and Matt, who was Mello’s best friend, was smart enough to keep himself just dumb enough to escape Roger’s wrath. This left Mello as the perfectly over exposed middle child.

When they brought out the computer and made them listen, Mello already knew that he hated L.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The shower exhausts Mello enough that he’s watching CNN when Matt comes out drying his hair and sheepish in a tank top. There’s tacky tribal tattoos all over his arms.

“You like?” Matt’s corny grin is just a bit little cute when Mello lets him see him staring.

Matt’s always been handsome in a boyish way. He has those bangs with the big, green eyes and the square jaw with the slightly up turned nose thing going on for him.

Mello turns the TV off.

“When we do this,” he says, “You’re going to do everything that I say exactly as I say it. And don’t ask questions. I won’t tell you shit.”

Matt gets in the bed, shivering. “You know I’ve always answered only to you." He smiles sleazy.

It’s a few days too late for Mello to realize that it’s been four years since they were face to face and, the last time, he was wearing Matt’s clothes too.

“You really fucked up, huh?” Matt keeps rambling. “Like, with all that shit you did in Hudson, I knew you were still in LA. Running around with the mob, huh? Dangerous stuff when Kira’s out in there, you know? I know you’re trying to catch him but, man, what if you catches _you_ , right?”

His eyes keep going over Mello’s face and shoulder as he talks. Playing dumb meant that Matt was thinking a stupid amount.

Mello makes eye contact. “Give me a cigarette.” Matt obeys automatically. “Light.”

After Matt reaches over Mello blows smoke in his face.

“You’re sleeping on the floor.” Mello hands the butt to Matt when he’s done.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The last thing Mello wanted to be next to dead meat was a child hooker again so he became a killer instead. The job had more perks.

The first week he worked for Rod he made ten grand just cutting coke with glass and meth - real jerk off stuff. Back then they were a five borough operation with connections to the family running the heroin dens in the Lower East Side.

These people were millionaires but still had such shit taste that the girls only wore black ballerina flats with spikes on the sides. They were smart, though. The old timers in the neighborhood respected them because Ma took in all the strays.

Rod was happy with what he made in Brooklyn and saw no reason to overexert himself until Mello crunched some numbers.

“Yeah, yeah. The Robinsons make a lot of dough. You think they’re gonna sell to me? They have grandkids!” Rod made a show of not being convinced but his eyes never left the xy-coordinate graph Mello drew on a napkin.

Mello couldn’t believe he was that dense. “I’m just _saying_ , why not control all the industry below 116th street?”

Rod gave a fat bark and considered the matter spoken of.

Later that week, Mello got one of the junkies hanging around Alphabet City to show him where to get the good stuff. It took a month for him and his sweet face to get Ma to give him her cell and, when she did, he carried her head right over to Rod in a freezer.

“I’m just _saying_ that you don’t need to _ask_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s nice spending the night at the motel with Matt because neither of them sleeps. In the morning, Mello decides to let Matt stare at his back as he cleans his burn wound with toilet paper and soap. The sink’s a bloody mess when Matt gets up way too close to him from behind.

Mello lets him push all his hair to one side, slide a finger down his neck, his spine, the small of his back, and when it gets to his ass he says “Stop.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Heroin is the best thing Mello has tasted and getting off of it after he did what he needed to do with Ma sucked balls.

When you were on dope everything you did or thought or said was A-fucking-fantastic even if you were picking out fries from the trash on St. Marks to suck the salt out.

Before he got hooked Mello had thought that he’d use his sheer hatred of Near to pull himself out of whatever he got himself into. In the end, Mello realized that thinking about Near always made him feel hopeless. 

What ended up happening was that he handcuffed himself to his bed because he realized that he still had Matt on hold somewhere ready and willing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Matt lets him drive because he likes his Nintendo DS. They ditch the RV for a Maserati and Mello hits the gas. It’s quiet because Mello makes it clear he prefers it that way.

“Hey Mello,” Matt says when they’re clearing Illinois. “I think I have a crush on you.”

Mello is already angry from the traffic around Chicago but this makes his blood boil.

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Mello tells him.

“I know… You know I would die for you. Forever and always.”

“I don’t mean it like that!”

It takes ten minutes for Mello to get off the road because Matt’s a fucking tool but he’s Mello’s tool to do what he wants with.

“Look, Matt. I don’t have sex.”

The goggles made Matt look wide eyed. “You mean you’re a virgin?”

“I was _never_ a virgin.”

Matt thinks something then and Mello knows it because his eyes land right on Mello’s dumb rosary that’s strung up so tight it’s cutting off circulation on his left hand.

Mello says, “You can leave.”

Matt just goes back to his game. “The only reason I’m here is because i want to be with you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The room Mello was in collapsed and his hair barely got singed. At least, that was what it felt like until his whole left side caught fire.

Luckily for him, there was an aftermath prolonged until the heroes of the story have already left and Mello’s phone was at 3% when he plugged in a number he’d never, not once dialed before.

The last thought he has is that, isn’t it funny? The only thing he had dreams about is the one who was always there to push away? He was lucky that life was always around to teach him things, like the one about what happens when you take other people for granted.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nothing happens until they get to Matt’s apartment. One step in and Mello’s back somewhere he’s forgotten clutching half an eraser and yelling about nothing in particular. It’s Matt’s _smell_.

Matt trips over his own shoes and locks the door. “This is my place. What do you think?”

There’s a pyramid of Mountain Dew and Monster cans stacked to perfection and Hot 97 was left on this entire time on cheap speakers from some deli probably. There’s ten laptops, all open and running something and no windows so it’s hot as fuck.

Mello pushes Matt against the door, hips together, hard. Without making contact he blows on Matt’s mouth, leans the right side of his face against his goggles very carefully.

“Whoa,” says Matt and does nothing else.

He doesn’t say anything when Mello buries his face in his neck and inhales.


End file.
